


One Spell to Discover what My Enemy is doing Presently

by renaissance



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Post-Canon, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:54:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21845521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renaissance/pseuds/renaissance
Summary: I had a lot of notions about what it would be like to come back here, and I tried to rid my mind of them on the flight to Burlington, the bus to Hampden. Already the sights out the window were nothing like what I remembered. Henry made me forget, sometimes, that memories were no more safe from the passage of time than flesh. The bus drove down roads that I remembered lined with small business; now I saw billboards. I saw the turn-off to the Albemarle inn advertised with a sign that had been made on a computer. And when the bus pulled in at the terminal, I saw a ghost.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 38
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	One Spell to Discover what My Enemy is doing Presently

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thatbroadcast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatbroadcast/gifts).



> To my recipient: thank you so much for your great prompts! I wish I'd had the time to write you a JS&MN fic too; instead, I just grabbed this fic's title from there. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> As this is a post-canon fic, it contains spoilers for the entire book, as well as dealing with many of the same themes. Please consider this a content warning.

I did believe in magic. A doctor I saw years after the fact, when I was at last unburdened and free to indulge in such frivolities, told me that the mind sees what it expects to see. That magic is real because you make it so. “I didn’t really turn into a—” _No_ , she said. _But you expected it to happen. So all those experiences were real_. “Then magic is a coincidence between expectation and reality.” She shook her head. _Magic isn’t real, Camilla. Your memories are._

Regarding coincidence, those weren’t my words. This happened from time to time. He found me when I wasn’t expecting him, and made me his mouthpiece. I understood that it was not magic. It was memory. I believed it.

I had a lot of notions about what it would be like to come back here, and I tried to rid my mind of them on the flight to Burlington, the bus to Hampden. Already the sights out the window were nothing like what I remembered. Henry made me forget, sometimes, that memories were no more safe from the passage of time than flesh. The bus drove down roads that I remembered lined with small business; now I saw billboards. I saw the turn-off to the Albemarle inn advertised with a sign that had been made on a computer. And when the bus pulled in at the terminal, I saw a ghost.

He didn’t see me at first. I was surprised that I recognised him. He was greying at the temples, and so thin. The roundness in his cheeks had become a pronounced gauntness. He was here, solid, but if I had shouted he would have crumpled, like a pile of leaves in the wind.

I approached him, wheeling my suitcase behind me.

“Charles.”

It took him a moment. Then his eyes went wide. “My god. Camilla.”

“What are you doing here?” I couldn’t keep the accusatory tone out of my voice.

“The same thing as you, I presume,” he said; his tone was identical, but for the slant to it that suggested someone who lived in Texas. Though we’d drifted, we were still stepping on each other’s toes. “Come to see the place before they bulldoze it.”

“Yes. Me too.” I swallowed down something cruel; Charles was coming back here because our time at Hampden was when he was at his peak, and this was his last chance to experience the College again before they turned the whole place into apartments. I was here for the same reason, but he was the one who needed to hear it. “We should go together this evening.”

I didn’t want to spend time with him; I had long since shed that impulse. I suppose this time my curiosity won out. Or Henry’s.

“Are you staying at the Albemarle?” he asked. “I was going to get a taxi there now.”

The very thought repulsed me. “No,” I said evenly. “I’m staying at a bed and breakfast near the campus.”

“After dinner, then. Shall we say seven-thirty? The sun will still be up.”

“I’ll meet you at the Lyceum.”

Charles nodded awkwardly. He looked as though he wanted to say more, but was too ashamed. He looked sober. We hadn’t kept in touch; I could only guess at what had gone into the changes I saw in him.

“Well, then,” he said. I didn’t respond. “I’ll see you later…”

“Yes,” I said. It was not _goodbye_ , but even that felt too sentimental for Charles.

As I watched him leave, a suitcase almost identical to mine rolling behind him, I replayed our conversation and wondered what a bystander might make of it. Would they guess we had a history? Would they guess that we were twins? I would have to stand by his side in front of a mirror to see if we still looked anything alike. Would they guess how much he hurt me?

My bed and breakfast was close enough to the bus terminal that I could get there by foot. I turned, and walked.

* * *

Hampden always had a reputation for picking up strange sorts. The bed and breakfast was called Andrea’s, though Andrea herself would be long dead by now. In our freshman year, Charles and I would buy fags at the tobacconist across the road from Andrea’s—they never asked your age—and then we would stand outside smoking, watching Andrea’s customers come and go. They were always shabbily dressed, usually hidden behind dark sunglasses. We made up stories about them. They were always rich and glamorous, sometimes famous, sometimes come here, to the ends of the earth, to hide from some scandal. Charles told me once he wished that he and I were as interesting as Andrea’s guests. “Speak for yourself,” I said.

The tobacconist was gone, but the walk had lifted my spirits. Being back in Hampden no longer felt like an imposition, nor a tour of duty. I took off my sunglasses to greet the receptionist and confirm my booking.

I had a room on the second floor, with a view out onto the road—the receptionist was apologetic for this, but I assured her it was no trouble. I carried my suitcase up the stairs and rested it against the wall as I unlocked my door. The door across the hall creaked, and though I did not flinch, I felt a shiver run through me. That was enough to activate my instincts, and I turned, looking over my shoulder and right at Francis Abernathy.

“Holy shit,” he said, and then he laughed.

We hadn’t seen one another since I visited him after he tried to kill himself; we had kept in touch until I moved out of my grandmother’s house, when I changed my phone number and lost his. I had not thought I’d miss him, but seeing him now was like opening a window on a stuffy day. We had been such good friends. We might even have been best friends, if he hadn’t possessed the fatal character flaw of fucking my brother.

“Hi,” I said.

Even that one word felt like uttering a magic spell. I smiled at him. Francis had aged well: there was a shock of white through his fiery hair, so perfectly placed that it had to be in part artifice. He wore real glasses; still round. He didn’t look like a ghost. He looked exactly like who he ought to be.

“Well tell me what the devil you’re doing here,” he said, crossing the corridor. He ushered me into my room and took my suitcase for me. “No, don’t tell me. I read the article too.” Like it was a secret, he added, “ _Online_.”

“It’s sad.” I frowned. They had closed the college last June, and shunted the remaining students to a sister campus in New Hampshire; there was talk of a grand reopening in two years’ time, but was it really a surprise that hadn’t gone ahead? “I think.”

“Objectively, I’m sure it’s not all that great a deal,” he said. “But _I_ left part of my heart at Hampden college. It’s not sad—it’s a _tragedy_. Oh, did you see? They have such nice tea here. Let me make you a cup.”

I felt a little bit like a hurricane had blown into my room before I’d so much as had a chance to settle. Francis put my suitcase at the foot of the bed and went straight for the electric kettle, boiling enough water for both of us and resting two teabags in chipped china cups. He must have been on his way out when we caught each other; now, he took his shoes off, and sat on the end of the bed, one leg crossed over the other.

“So tell me what I’ve missed.”

Embarrassed, I admitted I’d lost his number when I moved out. “I’m living in Washington now. I have a job in the Library of Congress. It’s nothing glamorous.”

“Nonsense,” he said. “Everything you do is glamorous. Look at your haircut, you absolute vixen.”

“And how about you?” I asked. The kettle whistled, and I turned to pour it out so that he wouldn’t see my blush.

“Nothing exciting. I work from home, doing a bit of editing, a bit of ghostwriting. A bit of sucking cock when the kids are out with their nanny. You know how it is.”

My eyes widened. The Francis I knew had always been prone to euphemisms; he had never spoken so openly about his personal life, even when we would’ve been able to compare notes. And, “You have kids?”

“Two. It wasn’t so bad, you know, sleeping with a woman. I just lay back and thought of Hampden.” He gave me a wicked grin. “We don’t anymore, of course. Priscilla has a man on the side now, and I have two beautiful daughters with hair so red that nobody can ask any awkward questions. Everyone wins.”

“Well, congratulations.”

I thought about the women at work who asked me when I was going to settle down and find myself a husband, have myself some children. But I was adamant: I didn’t need a single other person to complete me. Now, for a split second, I second-guessed that. Francis looked so happy.

He looked like he was about to ask me an _awkward question_. I cut him off: “You won’t believe this,” I said, “but you’re the second old face I’ve seen today.”

“Tell me Richard isn’t here,” he said. “I was on the phone with the bastard last week; if he came here without telling me—”

“I don’t know,” I said, though I wouldn’t have been surprised if he were. That would just be the icing on the cake. “No, I saw—Charles. At the bus terminal. We’re meeting at the Lyceum tonight, to walk around campus, if you want to come.”

Francis stood; he was quiet a moment as he dipped his tea bag in and out of the cup. I knew the feeling. But at last he said, “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

I knew that feeling too.

* * *

Francis and I left Andrea’s after an uninspiring dinner. The sky was a pale yellow; an unseasonably cold wind had picked up soon after we set out for Hampden College, blowing clouds across the sky. I thought, we might end up exploring in the dark after all. We made our way to the Lyceum reminiscing about our time at Hampden; we rehashed old stories from when we first met, before we knew what trouble we’d get ourselves into. Safe territory. We walked across the lawns, overgrown, and joked about the hippies who used to populate them. The Lyceum loomed ahead; I tried not to think about it.

There was a figure sitting in the grass in front of the old brick building. Francis and I exchanged a look.

“I must be some kind of soothsayer,” he said. “Or a witch.”

“Or this place is a magnet,” I mused, “and we’re all dripping with iron.” I called out, “Richard!”

He turned sharply, scrambling to his feet. For a moment I thought I’d been mistaken, or that I’d mistaken a memory for reality. I reminded myself that Francis saw him too. It was only that Richard was dressed exactly as he always used to, and it appeared as though he still cut his own hair. He jogged towards us. Up close, I saw lines on his freckled face.

We hadn’t spoken since he asked me to marry him.

“You didn’t tell me you were planning a visit,” Francis said, almost hissed.

In a convincing mimicry of Francis, Richard said, “I never tell you _anything_.”

“And somehow we all chose the same day,” I said.

“All of us?” Richard said.

I ignored him. “Doesn’t that sound like magic to you?”

“No,” Richard said, at the same time as Francis gave an emphatic “Yes.”

Francis glared at him. Richard remained impassive.

“Anyway, yes, all of us,” I said, though of course, it could never be _all_ of us. “Charles should be here soon. He was the one who set the time.”

We spoke a little while we waited, speculating; they had not kept in touch with Charles either. For Francis, at least, that was probably a good idea. Richard’s distance spoke of his tendency to self-isolate. I know Charles always thought the world of him. He often used to ask me how Richard was; except, of course, Richard had isolated himself from me, as well. (It was a miracle Francis still had his number.) It might be good for Richard to see Charles again. Vice versa, I couldn’t have said.

We didn’t have to wait much longer for him to arrive. I expected Charles to come swaying up the hill and reeking of alcohol, but he wasn’t even out of breath. His surprise registered on his face at the sight of Francis and Richard, but he said, quite cheerfully, “Camilla, you didn’t tell me you would be bringing a welcome party.”

“That’s because I didn’t know,” I said. “It’s magic, that we’re here at the same time.”

I had hoped that maybe Charles, sharing in the particular mysticism of our upbringing, would understand. But Francis spoke over me—“Yes, don’t flatter yourself,”—and Richard let out a laugh. Charles passed me by completely and made his way towards the two of them.

I wondered if I had stepped into a parallel dimension. Charles clapped Richard on the shoulder as they shook hands. He couldn’t seem to bring himself to shake Francis’ hand, but they shared a familiar smile, as though Charles hadn’t spent the better part of their brief acquaintance using Francis like a wind-up toy. I supposed this was what was meant to happen: time put things into perspective. Only it seemed not to have worked for me.

Charles looked up at the Lyceum like an old lover. “Do you think we can break in there?”

“It’s all unlocked,” Richard said. “I was just on my way out when those two found me. But I don’t mind going back in.”

He led the way, gesturing over his shoulder. I watched him go; the change was subtle, but I knew I was not imagining the increase in his confidence from when I’d last seen him.

The rest of us hesitated a moment. Our past was waiting for us: and for us, our past was a hell of a thing to confront.

* * *

It ended up that Richard and I wandered separately from Francis and Charles, who were early on distracted by talking about their respective children—though from what I caught before we lost them, Charles only had visitation rights for weekends.

At first, Richard was silent. He knew his way around as well as if he’d never left, and trailed his fingers along the walls. I understood the need for a last, tactile connection to this place, but I could never be so bold myself. It felt like defiling history, like rubbing your greasy hands all over the stone of the Roman Forum. For Richard this was pilgrimage. My veneration of our history looked rather different, which was something he knew well.

We came to the abandoned administrative office. There were several stacks of filing boxes on the floor, stiff cardboard brimming with papers that were perhaps meant to have been cleared out when the rest of Hampden College was emptied, in preparation for the slaughter.

Richard ran up to one of the stacks and, like a child, kicked it over. Though it was satisfying to watch the papers fan out across the floor, I grimaced; I had dodged a bullet when I turned down his proposal.

He looked back to me, and smiled. I searched for the ghost of Henry in that smile. Richard had always _liked_ me, but Henry had loved me. There was nothing of that depth of affection in Richard’s smile. 

“It’s depressing, isn’t it?” he said, still smiling. “But I love being back here.”

“I haven’t decided yet,” I said.

“And seeing all of us again?”

“Yes, that’s been nice.” Thinking of Charles, I added, “In most cases.”

I could see that Richard was struggling not to take it personally. “We should keep in touch this time. Give me your phone number?”

“That’s a step down from _marry me_ ,” I said. I couldn’t help it. “Your priorities have changed.”

Richard went bright red. He actually hadn’t changed a bit; his old crush was bursting at the seams of his carefully pursed lips.

“Sorry,” I said.

“No, you can tease me about it,” he said. “I was young and stupid. I think I knew you’d say no, but I wasn’t smart enough to keep my mouth shut anyway.”

“You’re still thinking about it,” I observed.

“And you’re still thinking about Henry.”

“So are you.”

This was what it had always been like, talking to Richard. We reached an impasse very quickly, because he was never willing to say exactly what he meant, and I was never willing to indulge him. When he had admitted to me that he also loved Henry—that was the closest I’d ever got to something genuine out of him.

“I wish we could go back in time,” Richard said. I got the sense that this was another genuine moment. “We wouldn’t—do what we did. We’d just drop out of school and go and live in Francis’ country house forever, the five of us. We could have avoided the whole damn mess.”

It was a terrible idea, least of all because keeping Charles around would’ve torn us apart, me and Henry, him and Francis, me and him. But Richard had never been part of that tortured dynamic, not once, though he desperately wanted to be. Poor, spare Richard. He had no idea how lucky he was.

I made for one of the other stacks of boxes and kicked it hard.

“You’re still stupid,” I said. I did not shout. “I could never have married you. You’re so fucking stupid.”

He was very quiet for a long time. Then: “It’s just your phone number, Camilla.”

I couldn’t look at him. “I didn’t mean that.”

“I don’t care,” he said. “I’m trying—whether or not I’ve succeeded yet—to move on.”

So was I. I wondered who was playing catch-up with who.

“Just my number,” I said. There were pens still sitting on one of the desks. It took a few tries to find one that worked; I rolled up Richard’s sleeve and wrote my number on his arm.

* * *

We caught up with the others at last, walking down hallways we remembered and popping our heads into classrooms we didn’t. But we didn’t linger: we all knew that what we really wanted to see was Julian’s old office, where we’d sat around talking about verb conjugation and pitched warfare.

Someone had left a window open. Where once this place had been full of flowers, now the floor was littered with decaying leaves from last fall, and something that looked like it had once been a pigeon. A lot of snow must have come in over winter, because the leaves smelled of mold, and the floorboards and bookshelves were damp and warped.

It was foul. Francis couldn’t make it past the doorway; he hovered there, covering his mouth and nose with his sleeve. Richard, still leading his way, picked the way through the rubble to the desk at the front of the classroom.

“See here,” he said, holding up a bundle of papers, waterlogged and dried up again. “The last thing they taught in this room was Pliny the Elder.”

“I don’t miss it,” Charles said. He must have seen the surprise on my face, because he added, “I thought I would. I thought I’d come back here and wish I was twenty again. But—Pliny the fucking Elder. Christ. Can you imagine we used to eat this stuff up?”

I laughed, despite myself. Charles had said it to make me laugh and I so hated having to indulge him. “I thought it was fascinating,” I said, only a little defensively. “I still check out books on the Classics.”

“Me too,” Richard said. He wrinkled his nose. “Though I rarely get a chance to read for fun anymore.” I wondered if that meant he really had finished his dissertation, and managed to stay an academic.

“Oh, come on,” Charles said, “you’re not really saying you loved this crap, are you? All the, the pomp and circumstance, the fake idealism, Julian’s stupid _live forever_ shtick? You weren’t all just going along with it because you wanted Henry to pay attention to you?”

Richard put Pliny the Elder down on the desk. “No. I wanted the whole damn lot of you to—but I did love it. It wasn’t fake for me.”

“Nor me,” Francis said, muffled, from the doorway.

“I thought it was like magic,” I said.

Charles slumped back against a rickety table, defeated. He gave it one last shot, and this salvo, he fired at me: “Magic like all four of us being here at the same time, you mean?”

“Well what else could it be?”

I had raised my voice. I was never supposed to do that. I never wanted to be like him.

Charles opened his mouth to raise his own voice in reply, but it was Richard who spoke: “April the 18th.”

“What?”

Standing behind the teacher’s desk, Richard almost reminded me of Julian. “It was fifteen years ago today, when we… when Bunny died.” He nervously pushed his hair out of his eyes, breaking the illusion. “I come back here every year.”

We were silent.

“I thought you knew,” Richard said.

“For god’s sake,” Francis said, “can we get out of this disgusting room?”

I needed that, something to shatter the mood. As the four of us filed out of Julian’s classroom, while the memory of Henry stayed behind with one last question, I was six feet deep in my own mind. I believed Richard, though I had never taken note of the date myself. That whole year was a smudge on the canvas of my memory.

“I’d forgotten the date,” Francis said, when we were far enough away that he could breathe again. “I must have known it at the time—you know how I am—but it’s been so long. See, Richard, there was an article in a local paper, and I found it on the internet just two days ago. Well, I knew I had to get here as soon as I could. They’re knocking down Hampden College for a, what do they call it, a _brand new housing development_. It’ll be soulless, of course. Isn’t it depressing?”

“I don’t have a computer,” Richard said.

“I know that,” Francis said peevishly. “If you did, I might have sent you an email about it. And you weren’t answering your phone, because I presume you were travelling—”

“Because I’m a plebeian who still travels by bus,” Richard said. “So you’ve told me.”

As they bickered, Charles and I fell behind.

“Sorry for snapping at you,” he said. I wasn’t used to hearing him say _sorry_. I filed that one away and promised myself that I would sharpen my memory in its honour. “You’re right. It is like magic.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “ _You_ think it’s all _fake idealism_.”

He made an annoyed noise. “I do. But… I believed it at the time. It’s always going to be real to me in one way or another.”

I looked at him curiously. Back then, I never repeated anything of what Henry and I talked about to Charles, for fear that he’d recognise Henry’s patterns in my thought and grow angry, jealous. Now it seemed he’d arrived at the same conclusion as me without needing to be told. I wondered if he still thought of Henry, too.

“Magic is a coincidence between expectation and reality,” I said. I had learnt it by rote.

Charles mulled it over: “We expected we were coming here for one last farewell to the old school before it’s gone, but the reality is that we all had Bunny on our minds… ? No, I’m not sure I follow.”

“That’s alright,” I said. “I don’t think it’s really magic. I just believe it is.”

He didn’t respond. I could tell he didn’t understand. Good; another point of difference between us.

We made our way out of the Lyceum and back down to the lawns. Now the clouds had overtaken the sky. It was dark, and nobody was around any longer to maintain the lamps that lined the pathways.

“Looks grim,” Richard said. From the front of the pack—and how strange that he would become our shepherd—he turned, and grinned. “Maybe it’ll snow.”

“Not in April,” Charles said. “Not anymore, not with global warming.”

“Let’s get out of here before the storm breaks,” Francis said, “whatever it is. Richard hasn’t eaten, and I could do with a stiff drink.”

“I’ll come, but no drinks for me,” Charles said. Proudly: “Three years sober.”

“We have a lot of catching up to do,” I said.

Richard turned back around, and I followed him down the lawns, the impermanent shadows of Hampden College blending into the dark sky behind me. I was stronger than Orpheus; I felt no regret in leaving this place behind, no urge to take any of it with me. Henry was still in the classroom. That memory could stay.

As we walked, I held out my hand so I could catch one of the first drops of rain. Or snow, should it fall.


End file.
